I did nothing wrong to merit the red card - Agyemang-Badu

Ghana midfielder Emmanuel Agyemang-Badu has insisted he did nothing wrong to merit a red card during Udinese's loss to Fiorentina in the Coppa ItaliaÂ on TuesdayÂ night.

The 24-year-old Black Stars midfield enforcer was asked to leave the bench at the Stadio Artemio Franchi in second-half stoppage time after a brief altercation with a match official when Udinese were fighting to remain in the Coppa Italia competition.

Udinese were in the hunt for a goal and as the Liverpool and Arsenal target explains, he was only eager to get the game flowing while ball-boys at the stadium were hiding the balls.

"We needed a goal badly to reach the final and get an automatic place in the Europa League and the ballboys were keeping the balls," he explained to GHANAsoccernet.com.

"So I tried going there to get the ballboys to get more balls for the game because it was just one ball being used for the game. I tried explaining to the referee and he asked me to leave the bench."

Udinese failed to reach the final after the 3-2 loss on aggregate which means the Black Stars midfielder had had his hopes dashed.

Despite the red card, he is still eligible to play in the Serie A for Udinese.